PS. Why does so many people have a problem with the Emperor returning. I though t was a nice way to continue that particular subplot from ROTJ which was never really allowed to flourish due to Lucas’ suddenly deciding to make it more child-friendly. Also the OT was more centered around Luke and Vader so Palpatine was ever that particularly important to the overall emotional story, he was mostly just there for the sake of the lore. So post-Vader, it makes sense to make to expand him into a more important character. And a younger one works much better to offset Luke and the new Jedi’s in my opinion.
I also like the idea of Palpatine being more of an ancient evil character (more in a Sauron kind of way) as opposed to just some random Sith from Naboo as he was later retconned into. The idea of him as this evil energy entity that possess (cloned) bodies is a lot more interesting, too me at lest.
I personally have no problem with the reborn Emperor – at least in the first Dark Empire. Come Dark Empire II & Empire’s End, though, I felt his presence was a hinderance and crippled what could have been a truly great story about Luke and his nascent Jedi Order taking on the remnants of Palpatine’s dark side elite.